A Moment in Drive-In History
by ForASecondThereWe'dWon
Summary: Instead of joining her mother on an Archie-Grundy intervention, Betty heads to the Twilight Drive-In for its final show. She visits Jughead in the projection room and the two make their own moment in drive-in history. Rated M for Riverdale recasting Jughead as a total babe and Betty knowing exactly what to do with that.


The reel clicked and whirred and Jughead tried to focus his eyes on the film strip flying along on it, but it was making him sick. He spun in his chair, hauling up the second reel and clipping it into position to take over when the first ran out. The whole deal was a well-oiled machine, when Jughead was the oil. He peeked through the cut out through which the projection reached the screen, moving his face so dangerously close to the spinning reel that it created a hot breeze that blew a curl off his face. Escaping light from the projector found his cheek and he closed his eyes for a moment, imagining himself far away where the heat was the sun and the whooshing breeze was coming off the sea and the metallic scent of the equipment was. . . well, he wasn't sure what, but nothing for him to worry about. His alternate-universe-Jughead fantasies were more about the big picture than the details anyway.

Or maybe he was lying back in a car ripping down the highway. He opened his eyes and spun in the chair again, catching sight of a blonde head over the stream of light from the projector, in fact nearly blinding himself by it as he wobbled forward in surprise. He leapt to his feet. "Hey, Betts."

Betty stood in the doorway of the projection room, her fingers still on the knob. "I knocked, but you didn't come so I…" She shrugged.

Jughead was nodding rapidly. "Yeah it can get pretty hard to hear in here. They should probably make me wear earplugs—you know, health and safety and all that—but I doubt I would do it." He smiled at Betty and noticed she was still standing there looking sort of uncomfortable. "I think we stopped sending out formal invitations for this place back in the '50s so please, come on in." He swept his arm out dramatically.

Betty laughed and stepped into the room, shutting the door gently behind her. She took a minute to look around at the old posters on the walls and the film canisters stacked to the ceiling while Jughead checked the amount of film left on the reel. He was honestly just doing it to look busy, not sure why Betty had come.

In a minute, she spoke up. "Wow, it's kind of amazing how much stuff they fit in here. It's tiny."

Jughead turned to her, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "Yeah, I think they considered this room for Harry Potter's closet, but the drive-in didn't want to sell out like that."

Betty smirked and nodded in pretend seriousness. "Oh, sure. One minute you're hosting a film crew and a child actor with lens-less glasses and the next you're in a Warner Brothers uniform handing out popcorn on the behind-the-scenes walking tour."

"Exactly," Jughead shook his head. "I knew, Betty, that as fellow journalists, we'd just click—" the machinery clicked as though intentionally trying to screw with Jughead as the second half of the film took over and they both startled "—on the integrity issue." His eyes darted back and forth. "That was weird." He grinned.

Betty smiled and stepped around Jughead to look at the film zipping along.

"If you really want to see something cool, crouch down."

Betty looked over her shoulder at him, confused, and Jughead came up quickly behind her to guide her line of sight. He put his hand on her shoulder, nudging her down until she was at the right height to see through the cut out. Of course, then he wanted to see too, and he put his face next to hers. When Betty laughed at something on screen and Jughead didn't know what it was, he realized his focus had shifted to how he was positioned around Betty, his hand on her shoulder with his fingers brushing over onto her collarbone. His chest almost flush with her back. He wanted to step back. He wanted to stay where he was. He spoke.

"So, _Rebel Without a Cause_ , huh?"

Betty's ponytail flicked over her shoulder as she turned to him. "Yeah, I thought it was fitting." Her mouth was in a half-smile.

Jughead turned his face only slightly towards hers, hoping she wouldn't get freaked out by how close he was. His eyes ran up and down her face. "Why's that? Because I'm so hopeless?" Jughead laughed, but he was worried to think this might be exactly what Betty felt.

"Jumping to the worst case scenario without all the facts?" Betty raised her eyebrows.

"Well I'm aware of how it fits with the circumstances." Jughead rolled his eyes.

Betty half turned so that her shoulder was leaning against his sternum and jabbed him in the chest with her index finger. "But you're not getting the whole picture. You're overlooking the fact that James Dean is a babe."

"Ok," Jughead panted out, startled by her accusing finger over his heart. "James Dean is a babe. So what?"

Betty seemed to lose her nerve, dropping her hand and facing forward again. "Nothing. I just thought it would be a crowd-pleaser."

Jughead narrowed his eyes and leaned forward to look at Betty's face over her shoulder. In the bright clean light of this moment in drive-in history, Betty was turning pink.

"Betty?" It came out quieter than he meant for it to and he felt Betty shudder against him, avoiding his stare. "Do you think _I'm_ a babe?"

In the white-noise-like silence provided by the humming equipment, Jughead heard his heart pounding in his ears. Betty was incredibly still in front of him and he wanted to reach up and run his fingers through her tightly curled ponytail.

Suddenly, Betty turned to him fully and her eyes were nervous in her earnest face. With almost a feeling of numbness in his extremities, Jughead raised his trembling hands to hold her face. When she didn't break eye contact, Jughead swallowed and leaned towards her slowly, bringing his lips down on hers. Betty brought one hand up to his chest, resting her palm there, but her touch felt so intimate in this dark room just outside the spotlight of the projector's glow that in that instant, Jughead would have called her his soulmate.

Betty drew back and looked at him shyly. "Yeah, I do."

Jughead was still close enough to feel her breath on his face when she spoke. She smelled like strawberry licorice. "Is that why you're here, Betts? I mean, didn't you come with Kevin and Veronica?"

Betty's glance darted from Jughead's eyes to his mouth. "Yeah, but they won't be missing me."

Jughead grinned. "Are you sure? I know I would."

Betty's fingers winding in his hair was Jughead's split-second warning before Betty brought her mouth passionately back to his. She had absolutely floored him, almost literally, and he knew he couldn't keep his balance in this position so he put his hands gently around Betty's waist and pulled her up. She kept deepening the kiss, with an enthusiasm he had only seen her use before when chasing down a story, and Jughead allowed her to walk him right back into a wall.

When his body stopped moving, Betty pulled back and looked up at him. Her face was partly in the dark but Jughead could see her eyes shining.

"For crying out loud, Betts, don't stop," he panted. "I felt like we had a real Molly Ringwald-Judd Nelson thing going on there."

"To be fair, this place is bigger than a school closet." Betty smiled.

"Finally getting the recognition it deserves." It was a joke, but Betty saw the smile slip from Jughead's face.

"Juggy? You alright?" Betty put her arms around his neck and studied his face.

Jughead smiled bravely. "Yeah, I'll be ok, Betts. I'm glad you're here."

Betty stretched up on her toes and kissed him lightly before pulling back.

"Let me rephrase that." Betty looked at him questioningly. "I'm _really_ glad you're here." Jughead inclined his head to hers, putting all his energy into the kiss. When Betty experimentally licked along Jughead's lower lip and he groaned, the kiss quickly became desperate. Jughead drew her in to him, thrilling at the feel of the elusive, innocent Betty Cooper pressed against him. Betty shifted her weight and pressed her hips to his. Jughead jerked his hips back, not wanting to scare Betty with the erection that was stiffening in the front of his jeans. She probably hadn't meant to do it and… he had broken the kiss and she caught his eye. Betty was grinning. Oh shit. She definitely _had_ meant to do it.

Jughead banged his head back against the wall and groaned loudly. "Betty, what are you doing?"

"I like you, Jug."

He let his head fall forward and looked her in the eye. "Sure you do. I'm everybody's pal."

"I _like_ like you, Jug." Betty lifted the hem of his shirt and put her palm flat on his abdomen right above his jeans.

His head was off the wall so fast, Jughead nearly gave himself whiplash. He was kissing Betty furiously now, wrapping his arms around her and lifting her with a hand on her ass to set her down on a nearby table, which he cleared of its decades of clutter with a sweep of his arm.

As soon as Betty didn't have to cling to him for support, her hands were on his shoulders, pushing his open flannel shirt off, then dropping back to the hem of his t-shirt, sliding it up until Jughead took over and whipped it off over his head.

Betty leaned back on her hands. "Juggy, you're…" Her mouth hung open as little as she could manage to make it, given how shocked she was by Jughead's incredibly muscled torso.

Jughead didn't know how to deal with how impressed she was. "Yeah, well, us literary types often need to have more going for us than the ability to turn a phrase."

Jughead reached for Betty, holding her gaze as he unbuttoned her blouse and slipped it off. He cleared his throat. "Apparently this is an explanation I'm wasting on you." He planted a hand on the table on either side of Betty and leaned in to her, kissing her slowly and open-mouthed.

Jughead felt Betty tentatively bring her knees up to bracket his hips and he reached around her lower back, sliding her forward to bring their hips together. This seemed to recall her to the wanton Betty of a few minutes earlier and she tightened her knees, rubbing herself up and down his erection. Jughead gripped her more tightly and unfastened her pants. Betty got the hint and leaned to one side and then the other so Jughead could pull them down her hips and slide them from her legs.

This Jughead did with a flourish, then stared at Betty, sitting on the table in her pale pink lingerie. Betty brought him back to the present by reaching out and gripping him through his jeans, stroking firmly up and down his length. Jughead exhaled in a huff, looking to Betty for . . . what? Comfort? Predictability? But she didn't give it to him. Instead, she opened her legs and he saw that the front of those delicate pink underwear was soaking wet.

Heat flooded his face and his groin and Jughead yanked Betty to him, undoing her bra and dropping it to the floor, then hooking his fingers around the sides of her panties, whipping them down her legs.

Betty ran her hands across Jughead's chest, her own heart pounding. She leaned forward and licked over his nipple. Jughead groped for her breast with one hand, rolling her nipple, as he used the other hand to unbutton and unzip his jeans, kicking them, along with his boxers, down his legs.

Betty looked up into his eyes as Jughead stepped into the space between her legs. He raised his eyebrows at her, checking that she was ready to proceed. In a bold move, Betty bent double and licked straight up the length of his dick.

"Jesus Christ, Betts," Jughead spat out as he reached for her, lining himself up with her opening and pushing inside. She was tight and he could tell it hurt her, so he took a few deep breaths and tried to calm himself.

Betty raised her trusting eyes to his and nodded steadily so Jughead eased up into her until he was in all the way. He leaned his forehead against hers. "Ok?"

"Very ok." She tilted her hips forward, adding a very enjoyable pressure to what Jughead was currently experiencing.

He rocked back up into her, slowly, and Betty was waiting to meet him with a downward thrust. Jughead's next thrust up was not measured at all, but a jerk reaction, and Betty cried out in appreciation: "Oh, god, Juggy! Just like that." Maybe he didn't need to be so very delicate with her.

Jughead maneuvered a hand under her ass, gripping it as he drove up into her. Betty was quick to wrap her legs around him, bringing him in close enough to drag her clit through his wiry black hair on her downwards thrusts, scratching an itch she couldn't previously have defined.

Soon he was flicking his hips forward and back like a violent metronome and Betty was panting and moaning in his arms. Their sweaty torsos stuck and kissed as they slid against one another. Betty reached up and pulled Jughead's hat from his head so she could tangle her fingers in his hair.

When Betty seemed to be getting close, Jughead caught one of her legs up in the crook of his arm and raised it so her thigh was parallel to his body. Then he let loose and pounded into her. Thank god that each one of the drive-in's attendees that night had their car radios cranked to full blast enjoying this final al fresco cinematic experience because Betty _wailed_ when she came. Jughead thrust into her just once more before he couldn't contain himself. Her cry, almost as much as her hot, tight slickness, had driven him over the edge.

He dropped her thigh and it hung so limply that he pushed her back farther onto the table, afraid she might tumble off and land in a heap at his feet. Betty leaned into him, resting the side of her face against Jughead's sweaty chest. He leaned right back, wrapping his arms around her and tickling her back with a great exhalation.

"This theatre's certainly seen a lot of big movie moments, but I think ours would go down as the greatest of them all," Jughead said proudly.

Betty laughed against him. "You never do know what goes on behind the scenes. Getting it on with a childhood friend who seduced you in the projection room? Jughead Jones, you're quite a rebel."

* * *

To any interested readers, I've posted a new Betty and Jughead fic called _An Evening in Hell, Seven Minutes in Heaven_. Contrary to the tone of the title, it is NOT horror. Enjoy!

XO ForASecondThereWe'dWon


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